


Little Boy

by Skinandpit



Category: Death Note, Death Note: Another Note
Genre: Aftermath, Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 06:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skinandpit/pseuds/Skinandpit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before sending him away to spend the rest of his life in prison, L has a conversation with Beyond Birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Boy

Beyond Birthday, he kills a little girl and cuts out her eyes and it’s funny because she wore glasses. You get it, don’t you? The joke, the grand joke, it’s the funniest thing in the world and he didn’t make it up.

 L watches him explain this from the other side of a desk. This is an ordinary room in an ordinary wing of the Wammy House. Beyond Birthday is not going to kill him. Beyond Birthday is not going to leave. L knows this the same way he knows that he, personally, is not going to stand up and slit his own wrists. 

The overhead lamp is buzzing, ever so slightly, the should like a fly batting around inside a box. L pushes his toes together, feeling skin against skin and the muscles beneath.   “Who made it up?” he says. 

  Beyond Birthday tilts his head back, exposing his throat. He licks his lips. Most of his skin is burnt, but his lips are still there, red and chapped and unharmed, the teeth behind them white as fresh notebook paper. “ _God,_ ” he whispers. “ _God did it._ ”

__L bites his thumb.  
   
Beyond Birthday will stand trial, and he will go to prison for the remainder of his life. Before that, however, he will answer some questions. L has placed no deal on the table. He has offered no bargains, no suggestion of escape, not the hint of a promise to reduce his sentence. Beyond will answer the questions simply because L is the one asking.  

__“Do you speak to God, Benjaimon?” This is the name that Beyond used when he was just a little boy in the Wammy House. Benjaimon and Atlas, A and B, two little boys who were going to go far, practically joined at the hip until Atlas hung himself using a belt and a bedframe. Beyond left when he was only thirteen years old. Unless he’s been giving that alias out — and considering both the conditioning they received as children, and the name he used during the crime, L seriously doubts it — it will have been seven years since he heard it last._ _

__But if the name bothers him, if it even registers, he doesn’t show it._ _

__He hunches forwards in his chair, toes clutching at the edges of it. It must hurt him. He wasn’t on fire for very long, not nearly long enough to kill him, but he was still very seriously injured and L wonders at the effort it must take for him to remain upright, never mind committed to his mimicry. Beyond Birthday sits across from L like an imperfect mirror — toes pressed together, fingers resting lightly on his knees. He is skinnier, bones jutting out like those of a starving cat, and he is younger, and now he is scarred, but apart from that, they could be twins._ _

__When he speaks, it’s almost petulant. “I’m not crazy. I didn’t do it because I was crazy.”_ _

__“Then where does God come into it? What did he make up?”_ _

__“I’m not crazy,” Beyond says again._ _

__L nods. “I believe you,” he says, which is true. Beyond Birthday is not insane. As a rule, the mentally ill do not wake up one day and plan out three murders and a suicide attempt. There are exceptions, of course, there are always exceptions, but generally speaking, serial killing is the domain of the perfectly sane._ _

__Beyond Birthday is not normal. He’s cruel and violent and uncaring, but that’s not a mental illness. It’s just garden-variety evil. L has no sympathy for it._ _

__Beyond sinks back in his chair, as if that was what had been worried him — not the upcoming trial, not the possibility of his own execution, and certainly not the lives he’d taken. He just wanted _credit._ _ _

__“What did God make up?” L prompts._ _

__“Ah,” says Beyond. He grins and holds up one crooked finger. “The pointlessness. The joke. People are killed every day for the silliest things. Have you noticed? A woman forgets her watch and goes back home to retrieve it; she is struck by a car and dies. A man likes the song playing on the radio during an open house, and so he buys it; seven years later, a pipe bursts and he is killed by a gas leak. A cell divides; a cancer grows. All deaths are frivolous. Did you know that you have two years?”_ _

__Beyond does not sound threatening — only curious, and certain. L can't help it -- he looks up too quickly, and is rewarded with a laugh from Beyond._ _

__“I wonder what it will be. Maybe you’ll slip in the shower. I hope it isn’t in the service of a case, L, that would be _horribly appropriate_ and you really shouldn’t be the exception to the great ludicrousness of dying. Not in this case. Death is supposed to be the great equalizer, isn’t it?” _ _

__L has precisely one conversation before Beyond is sent away forever, and he doesn’t intend to waste it on this nonsense. He pushes onwards. “Do you feel that you are doing God’s work?” he says._ _

__Slowly, Beyond rocks forwards until he is leaning on the tips of his toes instead of his heels, and touches the desk. L watches his spider-fingers rub against the wood. He meets L’s eyes. Beyond had been wearing contacts at the time of the murders, but they are gone now, and his eyes are their natural colour — bright red, like pen ink. It is an impossible pigment, one which L has only a vague interest in investigating. He’s not a doctor._ _

__Beyond enunciates, very carefully. L can see all of his teeth. “I am not insane.”_ _

__“I feel,” L tells him, calmly, “as if I am doing God’s work. It is not a matter of insanity, only of purpose.”_ _

__Beyond falls back onto his heels. “No,” he says. He squints at L. “I am not doing God’s work. Maybe you are crazy. Maybe you have a messiah complex.”_ _

__“I don’t think so.”_ _

__“I am not doing God’s work. I am borrowing his joke, because it is a very funny one, but I am not doing his work. You aren’t either, incidentally. Finding criminals and putting them in jails is only a form of organization. You take the bad people and put them in one place and the good people and put them in another. It’s very silly. As silly as dying.” Beyond sighs, and runs his fingers through his hair. After the fire, only patches remain._ _

___It is naturally blond, but he has dyed it black so that it will look more like L’s — he did that the week before Atlas died. L remembers when he first came to the orphanage, a small child with limbs already gangly, painfully malnourished, so pale the veins shone through, with curls of colourless hair. He might have looked like an angel, if not for those eyes._  
   
Beyond pinches the bridge of his nose, making a big display of his exasperation.   “No, no, I’m not doing the work of anyone, L. I just wanted to meet with you.”    

__The light above them tick-tick-ticks, an ugly fluorescent, he should really should get it replaced._ _

__“You could have called.”_ _

__“I couldn’t have. It is very difficult to receive an audience with the great L.”_ _

__“You could have solved a murder, instead.”_ _

__Beyond tips his head. “Oh,” he says. “Yes, I guess I could have.” He widens his eyes, and L can’t tell if he’s mocking or if he’s genuinely surprised by the concept. “But I didn’t think of it. Like I said, death is very silly. Three people dead because the possibility slipped my mind. How ridiculous.”_ _

__L is not sure he has ever felt so much revulsion for one person before. He keeps his face impassive. He says, “Did you kill A?”_ _

__There is a pause, during which the light buzzes and no one speaks. They hardly even breathe._ _

__Then   Beyond Birthday pushes his tongue against the back of his teeth and exhales, slowly. “That’s what you wanted to ask me?”_ _

__“Yes.”_ _

__“You don’t want to know how I put the puzzles together? Or why I picked Naomi Misora? Do you want to know why I chose _Akazukin Chacha?_ I don’t like _Azakukin Chacha._ There was a purpose behind it and it’s very interesting.”  _ _

__“No,” says L, even though he does want to know. “It is not interesting. Nothing you did was interesting, Benjaimon. It was only murder, and I have seen it before. I want to know if you killed Atlas.”_ _

__“But that happened years ago.”_ _

__“Regardless, I think you would remember if you’d killed him” L tells him, drily, despite the rapid beating of his heard._ _

__“This happened only a few weeks ago.”_ _

__“Time is not an indicator of what is and is not interesting.”_ _

__“I took her eyes,” Beyond Birthday says. “Don’t you want to know what I did with her eyes?”_ _

__“You ate them,” says L, flatly, and Beyond Birthday grins. “Did you murder A?”_ _

__Beyond had been the one to find him, strangled to death on his bed.   The funny thing about hanging is that you don’t really have to hang _from_ anything — all you need is something which will put enough pressure on your throat to cut off your air supply even after you pass out. The drop is important only if you wish to break your neck before you die.   A would have known this because they were taught about murders the same way other children were taught the alphabet. _ _

__A might have drugged himself to make the process of dying easier. He might simply have withstood the pain, knowing that it would end eventually. Or he might have been held down._ _

__L has no way of knowing, because when it happened, he was fifteen and stupid. His first priority had been grieving, not the collection of evidence. By the time he begun to investigate the murder, the room had been thoroughly cleaned; A’s body had been cremated; and Beyond Birthday, the only available witness, had taken off._ _

__“I was twelve years old,” Beyond says, still grinning. “I hadn’t even had my growth spurt.”_ _

__L watches him, steadily, waiting, until his horrible smile, all that terrible glee, is replaced by a snarl.   “He was my best friend. Of course I didn’t kill him. What a stupid thing to ask.” He leans forwards. “I had to kill four people for you to pay any attention to me, and you don’t want to talk about the murders. I took a leg with me, too, did you know that? Do you think I ate the leg?”_ _

__“You didn’t eat the leg,” L says. “You dissolved it with acid and poured it down your drain. The police found residue, after they searched your apartment. It wasn’t a complicated thing to figure out.”_ _

__Beyond Birthday had been living in a tiny room with no bed, only a pile of blankets, a laptop, discarded Chinese takeout containers, and a great deal of makeup in the cramped bathroom. There was a narrow tub ringed with black hair dye. The mirror was shattered from three sources, although it still held together; the impact marks matched the cuts on Beyond Birthday’s knuckles._ _

__“Does it bother you,” says Beyond Birthday, “that after seven years, nearly a decade, you are still clinging to the bizarre possibility that a twelve-year-old strangled his severely depressed friend to death in a house dedicated to the development of super-detectives and was not caught?”_ _

__“You did murder three people,” L says._ _

__“Yes, well.” Beyond waves his hand dismissively. “All the same. A’s suicide was hardly a surprise, L — Wammy was not surprised, Roger was not surprised. _Perhaps_ , and this is only a _slight_ possibility you might want to consider, his suicide was the product of eleven years without any parents or loved ones or actually anyone who really _liked_ him for anything other than the potential that he might someday grow up to solve crimes like the cold little boy who wouldn’t give us the time of day.”  _ _

__Beyond Birthday rolls his eyes upwards. He slumps in his seat and lets his legs falls to the ground, out of the crouched birdlike position that L maintains at all times. “We knew three people, L. We were raised like lab rats. We spent our days looking at nothing but photographs of creme scenes and listening to police reports like they were bedtime stories. Do you know, grown men develop post traumatic stress disorder after looking at photographs of the things were were shown every single day, with no introduction, no gentleness, no compassion, when were were only children? Maybe it _got to him_ , L, it does happen.”  _ _

__In the pit of his stomach, L feels ill. He swallows, and keeps his face blank.   An image comes to mind: Benjaimon and Atlas, looking at crime scene photographs from a domestic murder, with some of their baby teeth missing. They are still in their pyjamas. Benjaimon is saying — _look, A, his tongue is smushed. Do you think he could have been alive while it happened?_ and Atlas is telling him no, to look at the bruise patterns, to see the manner in which he struggled. _ _

__He thinks: something happened to them, but that doesn’t excuse what came after. Maybe in Atlas’ case, but not in Beyond’s._ _

__He thinks: it is a little silly, really, how desperate he is to pretend that there were no consequences._ _

__Beyond runs his hands through his patchy hair. He doesn’t look very much like a murderer at all, and it occurs to L that his big eyes and his big grin and his curled toes and his ramblings about God and purposes are really just part of his mimicry. He’s pretending to be L, but bigger, but stranger._ _

__L feels bile rise in his throat — Beyond Birthday is disgusting, and the things he did are disgusting, and he doesn’t want Beyond borrowing a single inch of him. “Do you believe,” he says, “that somehow excuses —“_ _

__Beyond Birthday cuts him off.   “Not for me, no. Of course I think Watari and Roger ought to be held accountable for what they did, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen, and that’s somewhat outside my capabilities anyway. They are the law, all three of —“_ _

__“That’s enough,” L says._ _

__He doesn’t want to have a conversation with Beyond Birthday. Not anymore. Beyond’s mask is slipping, and he doesn’t care to see what is behind it._ _

__He leans forwards and taps the keys on his laptop.   “Please take him away,” he says._ _

__Beyond looks at him. There’s something faded in his eyes, something dazed.   “Will you visit me in prison?” he says. The borrowed flatness is gone from his voice. He sounds like a little boy. He isn’t, though. He’s twenty years old._ _

__“No,” says L._ _

__Beyond’s shoulders suddenly tense, like he’s realized for the first time that this all is ending — the play is over, the dance is done, and now he’ll have to face the consequences. “I —“ His voice cracks._ _

__The door opens, and Watari walks through it. He lays a hand on Beyond Birthday’s shoulder, then leans down, and whispers something in his ear. Beyond Birthday’s face softens. He closes his eyes. He smiles, and there’s that cold edge to it, something L is slowly recognizing as the way Beyond imagines his own face._ _

__Beyond imagines him cruel, L thinks; Beyond imagines him as the sort of person who might find the disposal of human eyes of academic interest. This bothers him more than it should.   Slowly, Beyond stands up and takes Watari’s hand._ _

__L watches him go. He has this flash of remembering — a dark corridor, Beyond too frightened to walk to the bathroom alone. _Everyone leaves me_ , he’d said in the dark, flatly, with absolute certainty. _Everyone goes and I am left alone.__ _

__What had he said in response? He can’t remember. He shuts his eyes and thinks. It’s like searching through bilge-water, deep and distant. _I won’t,_ he’d told him. _I’ll be there, no matter what, I promise.__ _

__When he opens his eyes again, Watari is standing in front of him._ _

__“What did you tell him?” L asks._ _

__“I told him you would visit him.”_ _

__L frowns. “I won’t.”_ _

__“It was a kindness.”_ _

__L turns his chair around, so that he is facing the window. “It really wasn’t.”_ _

__It is cold outside, but the view does not show it — the sky is blue, the grass is green, and the only indication of the weather is the lack of children indoors. They will be in their rooms, or in the communal areas. L thinks of them laughing, chasing one another, their faces lit up bright with joy; and then he thinks of them bent over pictures of murder victims in their classrooms._ _

__The yard is peaceful, as if nothing has happened, as if nothing ever will happen. “Find me a new case,” he says. “Something that could have a happy ending.”   Through the reflection in the window, L sees Watari nods. He turns and leaves, very slowly, on old man’s legs, and then L is alone again._ _

__He feels sick. He cannot show it._ _

__He shuts his eyes and tries very hard not to think, but his thoughts are there all the same — blood and teeth and eyes, and a little apartment scattered with half-eaten food, and a little boy too frightened to walk alone in the dark._ _


End file.
